Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Five & Dime 2007: Joining The "In" Crowd

These are games that have appeared on the Five & Dime lists before... and have risen in overall playing percentages.

Gamepercentage gain from 2006
Yspahan+20.64%
Qwirkle+11.03%
BattleLore+9.62%
Taluva+9.61%
Thebes/Jenseits von Theben+9.51%
Pillars of the Earth +8.08%
Tumblin' Dice+7.93%
Factory Fun+7.53%
R-Eco+6.46%
Fairy Tale+6.61%
On the Underground+6.15%
Mr. Jack+6.06%
Hive+5.56%
Lost Cities+5.58%
Nexus Ops+4.57%

There are two main reasons that games appear on this list:
  1. They were reprinted and/or had another game added to their franchise this year (Thebes, Fairy Tale).
  2. They were "Essen" games... they were released late in 2006 and were only played 5+ times by a couple of folks in 2006 (Yspahan, BattleLore, Taluva, Pillars of the Earth, Factory Fun, R-Eco, On the Underground, Mr. Jack).

As always, the interesting games here are the ones that can not be explained by these reasons:

  • Qwirkle, which is the first "adult" game design that just seems to connect so well with gamers & non-gamers.
  • Nexus Ops, which got some extra gaming love from being remaindered - which gave a lot of folks time to appreciate what a nice design is hidden all that glow-in-the-dark plastic.
  • And I don't have any way to explain the sudden surge in interest in Tumblin' Dice (my $5 copy found at an AmVet thrift store notwithstanding), Hive (I really don't understand that one - but that's my problem, not yours) and Lost Cities (which is enjoying a resurgence - was there a new printing this year?!)
at

3 comments:

  1. ironcates11:56 AM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  2. ironcates11:59 AM

    With Nexus Ops and Tumblin' Dice, I think they form a category of "mass market games that are good enough to get noticed by the BGG crowd" There may be a little lag time from when they're released to when they start getting regular play with the BGG crowd. Where as, the Essen releases are generally the next year because the BGG crowd aka cult-of-the-new is so tied with the designer games coming out. In addition, they're generally leary of the mass market games.

    That's my theory anyway.
    (Edit on first message for typos)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous1:15 PM

    Wasn't the really nice Bakelite edition of Hive released last year (or near the end of 2006)?

    ReplyDelete